Subhechcha Ganguly 
Anjashi Sarkar, a beautiful author, blogger and life coach. She is a writer starting her career with a book Voicing Contentious Silences Other Narratives on History and Society. She has passion for capturing beauty of world through her writing. She draws inspiration from different experiences and thoughts. She has received different awards in literature field. Let us know more about her in this interview.
Anjashi Sarkar, an academically merited author, blogger and life coach based in New Delhi started her writing career in 2015 with a book titled, Voicing Contentious Silences: Other Narratives on History and Society. She is passionate about writing to capture the beauty of the world and vocalise it.
1.Hello Anjashi, how you define yourself to our readers? Which profession are you working in?
Hello. I would like to thank you and the readers for taking time to get to know me. To answer your question, I would say that there is no definition for someone who likes a bit of everything they come across and try their hands at. The reason why it would be harder to define someone like me is because I have tried doing different things and liked them, going on to realise that I can excel at many things. Perhaps, I could use a phrase: ‘Something of Everything.’
2.Please share your journey of being a writer? When did you start and choose writing? What’s your inspiration behind it?
I had started reading out from picture books early on. For me, it was an escape to a world of my own where magic happened and I could fly, imaginations of that kind. The funny thing is, I never had the opportunity to hone my writing skills in school because I was an academically inclined student. My writing started with one assignment, I recall, in my First Year of BA History Honours where we had an elective paper and I had selected English Literature. This assignment was on a piece of work that evokes creativity inside of oneself. I had done a comparative study on Dilip Kumar’s and Shah Rukh Khan’s renditions of Devdas, a famous novel authored by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay. I wanted to understand the nuances of character development and differences in the filmmaking process when novel is adapted into a film. The 1955 version did not have that grandeur and pomp like the 2002 version probably because the writing and execution were different. I wanted to explore the reasons as to why some literary pieces are deemed fit for visual arts and then got an offer to write for a Hindi television channel. It did not materialize because of certain norms that I was not comfortable with including a clause where they would not include my name in the credits. I started writing short articles, blogs, MBA assignments soon after and wrote my first book in 2015. And kept writing ever since. I would also like to point out that my writing only got noticed (the non- academic kind) only in 2020 when my blog reached 20000 people in a month and my name started trending on Google when people searched topics like ‘mental health’, ‘manifestation’ or ‘positive mindset’. I had four unsuccessful blogs before that.
3.How has writing helped you and how has life changed after being a writer? What suggestion do you have for aspiring writers? What is your strength?
I was a timid kid in school and college, probably even after that. I would not say I was an introvert but did not engage in conversations that stimulated me intellectually. When I started writing, no matter what kind, it was to relieve my mind of the voices that it held after being subject to mockeries and baseless judgements of others. For me, writing became my weapon to deal with the incompetencies in my personality. I was extremely quiet that if I had sat beside you, you would not even know, there were people who practically treated me as invisible because of this. When they started reading what I was writing, the articles, the books, blogposts, etc., life was not the same anymore because now the conversations were not about how quiet I was or how scared I looked but regarding what I was working on for the next work.
If one wants to become a writer, they must write. It could be on anything, thoughts, experiences, interactions with people and the like. How do you write more? By reading more. That is how your creativity and imagination start collaborating to present a picture worth looking at.
I believe my strength as a writer comes from my observation skills. I am extremely thorough with details and love to rewrite an element until I am satisfied with the presentation. I have a knack of noting the unnoticeable.
4.What is best part about being a writer? What was the most challenging task in your writing career? How do you bring out new ideas for your writing?
The best part about being a writer is you do not have to live by the rules of the world in your story or the material you produce. Even if something is backed by facts, the manner of placing them in an ambience decides your worth in this field. There are good writers as well as not so good ones. Everyone can become a better writer by understanding or identifying their signature aspect. For example, Charles Dickens wrote about despondency and chaos; a certain tone of darkness was always present. Every great writer has a specific formula that they use to connect with the reader.
The most challenging part in my writing career was finding a niche audience. I did not know what kind of readers would find my work worth their time. I found out, in due course of time, that the readers who find my work interesting are those that are looking for simple ways to understand an issue. My strength lies in the fact that I can deconstruct and reconstruct a complex matter in several ways.
I trace new ways of writing by reading children’s books, realistic novels, watch film adaptations of classics, looking at paintings, observing regular or ordinary people and identifying problems that could have a possible solution. I go back to do my research and then come out with a decent prose to address an issue.
5.What do you do apart from writing? How do you manage time for writing and are you something as of now?
I am a PhD research scholar so I spend substantial hours studying through archival materials. I am a Life Coach too. I enjoy screenwriting as of now, for refreshing my mind. I do not wait for pen and paper to present themselves. If I find something interesting, I make a point to note it down on my phone.
6.Kindly attach the link of your book so that readers can get a grasp on these beautiful reads.
My books can be found here online:
https://www.amazon.in/Books-Anjashi-Sarkar/s?rh=n%3A976389031%2Cp_27%3AAnjashi+Sarkar
7.Is there any message you want to share with our readers?
Just a quotation from Ernest Hemingway that truly motivated me, “When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.” The other one that I remind myself of when I start getting attached to the responses of my readers is, “You must be prepared to work always without applause.”
